I FIRED This Passive Aggressive Client...

I've had it. I've had it with these customers that try to push us around and are absolutely obnoxious. Today I'm going to tell you about the rest of the story of a video that we posted a few weeks ago where a customer said that one of our employees was lazy and arrogant and said he never wanted to see his face again.

Something else said that. I really don't. He was dirty. I mean, the guy was filthy.

Is this fine, though, up front? I'll blow this off, obviously, but is this okay?

Yeah, that's something else you didn't do last time.

Yeah. Okay.

You know, I've been pretty happy with just about everything except for those two guys. That tall, skinny one that pulls the white trailer behind him. He's arrogant.

Yeah.

And he doesn't seem to want to work.

All right, well, I'll get things blowed off, I'll update those notes, and then you should be good.

Yeah.

So are you a boss type guy?

Oh, no, we're just out here. We're just trying to make some videos for ads, advertising and stuff today. So I don't want to tell them I am the owner because if I do, next time the guys come, he'll just use my name and say, oh, the last time the boss was here and said X, Y and Z. And I don't want that happening.

I'm Mike Andes, landscapebusinesscourse.com and today I'm gonna go over something that's very frustrating and that's when you have to fire a customer. Okay. So if you watch the video, a few weeks ago, you saw me, we were just filming and I rolled up on a property and the client came out and basically said, hey, I like your guys work. You guys do all. Everyone does a great job. But there's this one person, there's a bad job. They are arrogant, they don't do a good job, they always miss spots, they're dirty, and all the rest of it was horrible. So basically I did not stand up for the customer in this regard. And a lot of you in the comments were like, that was bad customer service. You should always listen and apologize. But based upon the fact that I'd already gone the property and there was no missed areas, I could not apologize and throw the employee under the bus because he wasn't there and there was no air in terms of the work. This person was just complaining about the appearance of this individual. But then I'm going to show you the rest of the story. The rest of the story is that Caleb Is the individual that he was talking about. Caleb shows up every single morning earlier than the rest of the crew to be able to work on the equipment. And he's very mechanically inclined. And it saves our shop locally from having to get a full time mechanic that would otherwise cost a lot of money and we wouldn't really necessarily have enough work to keep that person full time. So he does a great job coming in early. He does it really of his own accord, and he doesn't get paid a whole bunch more to do it and has helped the team out tremendously. He comes in, does a. Yeah, he's working on grease and oil and parts and underneath mowers and trucks, but he does that every single morning before the crew shows up. So even if he would have done the lawn early in the day, one of those first jobs, he potentially could have been dirty because he was working on the equipment that morning. So what happened today? Caleb showed back up on that property again, and this client was actually outside painting the exterior of their house. Now, you would think that if this person had an issue with the service, they would simply talk to Caleb. But what happened is Caleb did the job, Everything went smoothly. He then left. And a couple minutes later, the client calls the office complaining about the service, Complaining about the person didn't want to ever see them on his property again, Complaining about the appearance of this individual for no reason whatsoever. And so Caleb had some serious guts. He literally turned his truck around, went back to the client's property. And Caleb is not the type to get mad or frustrated or get verbally unhappy with somebody. He's very, very nice guy, and I know that for himself. And because he said it, he didn't get mad at the client, but the client did not back down. You would think most people would be like, well, I really appreciate the fact you'd come back and address my concerns, but no, this person was again berating him, telling him then to his face, I'm never going to see your face again Because I called and told the office, I don't want you on my property. He literally said that to the employee after being passive aggressive enough to not just address him in person, but call the office after he left, when he was already outside and could have just talked to him within close proximity. Like, I cannot believe this craziness. So sure enough, what happens? He calls the office again. Then the office, the command center actually says, like, hey, look, if you don't want one of the people on our property, we're not gonna serve your property at all. Then he emails and basically says.

Don'T text me. Cause they had emailed. They emailed him previously. Don't text. He said text, but they emailed him. I don't want you to email this. If you want to call me, you can. But I don't want to ever see him on my property again. So that's when we had to fire a customer. And you have to do this sometimes. You have to fire a customer that's going to be just completely unreasonable and is going to constantly put your team in jeopardy and constantly throw them under the bus, make them feel horrible, make them feel like dirt. I cannot handle the service industry. We work hard. It's not easy work. It's out in the sun, we're sweating. Yes, we're dirty. We're working around grass clippings and dirt all day long. And Caleb, in this instance, had come in prior to work and probably worked on equipment. And that's potentially why he could have been dirty. I actually had this little thought we could actually cut out a little area in his shirt and put a GoPro on a chest mount and then have him go back to the property. But we fired the client. We're not going to deal with it. We. We're not gonna allow a client to push us around. And I know when you're first getting started, you have 20, 30 customers. Every customer, you kind of bow down to everything they want. But there are customers out there, I'd say maybe one in a hundred, that are absolutely. You cannot deal with them. You cannot make them happy, and they'll kinda get focused, tunnel vision on this one little thing that you're doing wrong or they think you're doing wrong, and they're just unrealistic. You cannot make them happy. The fact that an employee comes back to your property and then addresses you face to face with the problem that you just behind their back complained about, and then you still throw it back at them with an insult about their looks is just abhorrent to me. It's absolutely crazy. And part of being in the service industry is the fact that we are servants. We serve our clients. Yes, but the customer is not always right. And when they're wrong, you as an employer is your responsibility to stand up for your team and make sure that they realize they're more important than. Than the customer in that regard. Yes, customers are number one. Yes, we're customer focused. But if the customer's gonna be unreasonable and not allow us to fix mistakes or try our very best to accommodate them, do not think that I'm gonna throw my team under the bus. Or make them serve an unrealistic, unreasonable client. There's my little vent for the day.

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